Breathe In (Breathe Out)
by altschmerz
Summary: "He's not hurt. He's not okay but he isn't hurt, I just-" Peter cuts himself off, the strange vocal quality of a sentence aborted halfway through almost like static across the phone line. "Elle, there was an explosion. He was right there, it was right in front of him." or: Elizabeth, Neal, grief, and family. (for my found family bingo square, 'grief/mourning'. gen. season 2.)


i love... found family. i love... white collar. i love... elizabeth burke.

anyhow here is this, set ambiguously not too long after kate's death. shout out to glo-squid on tumblr who requested this prompt with neal and elizabeth, thus giving me an excuse to write this.

(the title is from sleeping at last's song 'atlas: sorrow')

* * *

One of the perks of being a person highly sought after and admired in one's field is the ability to conduct your business however it is you see fit. Today, Elizabeth has seen fit to conduct her business from the comfort of her own home. It's something of a downer day outside, not quite blustery enough to be an actual storm, which would have its own sort of poetic air to it, but not really nice either. The sun disappears periodically behind patchy clouds, creating the kind of day where you'd have to put your jacket on and take it off around and around in circles as the temperature fluctuated with the sun's game of peek-a-boo. So yes, today Elizabeth has decided to work from home.

The soft glow of triumph lights the kitchen as she hits a button on the side of her Bluetooth headset, hanging up on the difficult negotiation she's just pulled off for a wedding venue after the date needed abrupt changing. Something to do with the groom's mother, and crucial to get sorted, given the colorful host of neuroses already involved. So pleased with her own ability to persuade is she that she decides to take a victory lap around the kitchen and make another cup of coffee - the nice kind Peter brought home to surprise her with, the kind she makes in a single-serve French press.

As the coffee brews, the smell of it permeates the air, strong and thick and rich. Elizabeth puts both hands flat on the counter, the cool of the countertop seeping into her palms, and closes her eyes. She breathes in deeply, the heady scent of the brewing coffee making the whole house feel warmer around her. The zing of satisfaction of a job well done prickles along her scalp, and the heavy calm of the smell of the French press sits like a physical blanket around her shoulders. In that bubble of a moment, everything is perfect.

It doesn't last.

The sound breaks the illusion first. Elizabeth's ringtone cuts through the air, snapping her eyes open and making her feel just a bit silly for getting caught up in a fit of reverie over the smell of coffee. Her Bluetooth reflects in the side of the glass of the French press, blue and glittering as the lights flicker their 'someone needs your attention' message at her. She sighs, rolls her shoulders, and steps around the chairs to grab the earpiece off the table.

"Burke Premier Events," Elizabeth says, the greeting rolling off so easily she doesn't even have to think about it. Her voice is raised into a pleasant, bright register, one that hopes to set clients at ease. "Elizabeth Burke speaking."

"Hon, it's me."

Normally, there's nothing Elizabeth looks forward to hearing more than her husband's voice. Normally, though, her husband's voice doesn't sound like that, though. Hushed and tight. Just a touch too fast. Something is wrong.

"What is it?" she asks without preamble. Perks of being married for as long as they have - you get to skip the preamble.

"Listen, I can't talk long, but I have a favor to ask you." The words rush out almost too quickly to maintain clarity, and they're nothing like Peter, her usual Peter, calm and steady and methodically precise. "We were out on a case, this construction site by the water, and there was an explosion."

Elizabeth's heart skips a beat and thuds so hard back into motion it's like she can feel it hammering at the inside of her chest. An explosion. There was an explosion.

"Peter?" The entire question is contained in one word, and this time when Elizabeth's voice pitches up past her usual octave, it's not because of a well-cultivated customer service persona. She can't breathe, can't move, her face growing hot and the rest of her body as cold as the counter still under her hand.

"I'm okay," he's quick to tell her, and that should be it. That should be what pushes the clock's hands back into motion, calms her heart and soothes her EKG-spiked nerves. And for a moment, that's exactly what it does. But just as fast, her breath catches all over again. Because that isn't the only question, not any more.

"Neal?" she asks, and again, the question is far more than the single name it's held in.

"He's not hurt. He's not okay but he isn't hurt, I just-" Peter cuts himself off, the strange vocal quality of a sentence aborted halfway through almost like static across the phone line. "Elle, there was an explosion. He was right there, it was right in front of him."

Elizabeth pulls a deep breath in, focuses on the counter under her palm, the smell of coffee still thick in the air. She breathes out in a great whoosh of air, and her heart aches even as it calms and slows. An explosion. Oh, Neal…

"What's the favor?" Though she asks, Elizabeth already has a pretty clear idea of what he's going to say.

"Can I bring him to the house? He can't be out here in the field like this, and the office-"

"Bring him," she says, interrupting his litany of reasons before it can really get underway.

"Thank you." The relief in Peter's voice is palpable. There's some indistinct sound from his end of the conversation, nothing she can make out. It might be words, someone talking, but it's too faint for her to recognize. Peter must pull the phone away from his face and cover the speaker because when he answers, it's too muffled to make out anything aside from the fact that it is him speaking. "Sorry, I've gotta go, we'll be there in twenty?"

"Sure. See you in a bit, love you."

"Love you too."

The ghost of the phone call and the promise of whatever's about to arrive upon her house sits in the kitchen like a physical presence, taking up space and making Elizabeth feel crowded. She turns back to the counter, to the coffee that's finished brewing by now, and pours it out into a mug. No use wasting good coffee, and it'll give her something to focus on until they get there.

Ten minutes into her wait, the coffee is finished. She'd barely tasted it, the usually satisfying flavor reduced to ash and the distant reminder of something familiar and comforting. Elizabeth rinses out the mug, then goes back and actually washes it, drying it with a towel and setting it back onto the shelf with all the rest. The French press is next, carefully emptied of its grounds and cleaned, returned to its proper place. She wipes the counter down for good measure, and by the time that's through, it's been fourteen minutes.

For the next six minutes, Elizabeth paces. She flits from one small task to the next, none of them urgent or even entirely necessary, just for something to do. An odd impulse sends her to the hall closet, retrieving another blanket to leave on the couch, and then something about it looks lopsided, so she shakes it out and folds it, refolding it twice more before she's satisfied. Picking up the remote, she turns the tv on, then back off, only to end up leaving it on, a screensaver bouncing across it as she wanders back into the kitchen.

At the core of her, Elizabeth Burke is a do-er. She's never been the kind of person who was comfortable sitting around and waiting for things to happen. To look at her and her husband, a person'd be inclined to predict the opposite, based on their careers. Peter with his FBI job would seem the logical choice for the antsy, high-energy one of the two of them, but no, he's the wait-and-see one, the guy content to sit on stakeout for an entire day, just in case the right person came along and did the right thing.

Her, though? Elizabeth went into event planning for a reason. It's a profession where everything is a nonstop crisis from just about the word 'go', and sometimes even before that, too. She jokes, sometimes, with her assistant, that she should start answering the phone, 'Elizabeth Burke, what fires may I put out for you today', given that's where it inevitably ends up going. And she loves every moment of it.

Twenty-three minutes and they still aren't there. Elizabeth is about to start doing something truly ridiculous, like getting her gardening gloves and weeding in the backyard, or testing all the smoke detectors to make sure they're functioning as they should be. Just before she can decide which of these tasks she's going to start just to get her mind off what might be about to walk in her front door, her front door swings open and Peter's voice greets her.

With a squeeze in her chest that's half relief, half apprehension, Elizabeth steps around the corner in time to see them in the front hallway. Peter's got his coat on, and he's got his hands up at Neal's shoulders, pulling the younger man's coat down off his sloped back. Neal's head is turned away, his face completely obscured, as he slips off his shoes. Even in the midst of… whatever is happening with him, he's ever the gentleman.

Suddenly, sharply, Elizabeth hates it, this pristine, crisp-ironed quality of his. She wants Neal to run into their house and track mud across the floor, to break a plate in the kitchen and turn the thermostat up too high. To leave all the lights on and dishes in the sink for longer than two minutes. In that fleeting thought, she can see him, careless and haphazard, posture boneless with ease. Curved from the relaxation of a man completely at rest rather than a man whose spine bows from the weight of the grief anchored in him. Elizabeth can see him clear as day, smile lopsided and bright and real, and then she blinks, puts that version of Neal away somewhere safe. Somewhere she can mourn him later.

Shoes and coat stowed away, Neal steps out into the living room, propelled that way by Peter's hands, directing him towards the couch. He does as he's told, silent and obedient and nothing like the boy in Elizabeth's fleeting daydream. Her and Peter's happy, careless boy.

"There was an explosion," is the first thing Peter says to her, after he gets close enough to kiss her, close enough that Elizabeth can smell the remnants of smoke on his clothes. It reminds her of another day when Peter had come home smelling like smoke and talking of an explosion, the day that is the reason they're here now. The reason Neal sits, burned out and hollow, on their couch now.

"You said," Elizabeth replies, looking for it in his face, any cue as to how bad it is.

"It's bad," he says, answering the question she hadn't asked. Peter's voice is just barely above a whisper, though a glance past him tells her it wouldn't matter much either way. Neal's not paying attention - she doesn't think he can probably even hear them right now. "He's not handling it well. I got him back to the car and he got this- this faraway look and I didn't want him to be alone, but the case and the paperwork is just…" It's another way that Peter never speaks, hurried and disorganized, his own words tripping over each other.

"Hey." Elizabeth accompanies the interjection with a squeeze of his hand, held between both of hers. "I'll take care of him."

Whatever Peter had been about to say falls away to nothing in an exhaled breath. His eyes shut for just a moment, and he nods. The hand not caught between Elizabeth's goes to his face, pressing for a moment over his eyes, then drifting past his mouth and falling back to his side. His attention drifts over to the side, through the doorway into the living room, before returning to her.

"Thank you," Peter says, voice low and gruff. He'd been scared today. Elizabeth can see it in him now, the set to his jaw the way his gaze keeps flicking over to the living room, to Neal. The smoke on his clothes has to be getting to him, reminding him of the same terrible day it's yanked Neal back to.

"Do what you need to do," Elizabeth tells him, chin up and determined to put forth an air of having things handled. She's Elizabeth Burke, she's got this under control. "I'll take care of him, and we'll be here when you get home."

For a moment, it looks like he's going to speak, even just to thank her again, but he doesn't. Instead, Peter leans in to give her a quick kiss, squeezing her shoulders, then walks over to the couch. He bends down and says something to Neal, something Elizabeth is too far away to make out. Whatever it is, Neal doesn't really react, except to look down. Elizabeth watches from the doorway as Peter says something else, then rests a hand at the side of Neal's head. He leaves it there for a long moment, thumb stroking dark hair back away from a pale temple. Then he stands up, shakes himself a little, and walks back out the front door.

And just like that, Elizabeth is left alone with Neal. She stays where she is in the doorway at first, just watching him and trying to get a read on what's going on in his head. His hair is mussed out of its usual careful style, still left somewhat lopsided from where Peter had touched him, and she thinks she can make out a smudge of some kind on his forehead. Ash, maybe, and the thought turns her stomach. His hands are folded limply in his lap, and he's not moving. Aside from the occasional shudder running through his shoulders, he's completely still.

Elizabeth makes an executive decision. She ducks back into the kitchen for a moment, snagging her laptop from the table, and then makes her way into the living room. Without saying a word to Neal, or much looking in his direction, she sits down next to him on the couch. Leaving the television on earlier in the midst of her directionless need to do something turns out to have been a good call, as she quickly flicks through options before landing on a show. The theme music plays quietly over the speakers, and she focuses on her computer. The Reynolds wedding has a very specific color scheme she's been having a difficult time sourcing decorations for.

For the most part, Elizabeth doesn't really like cooking shows. They're like a hyper-focused, uber-stressful version of what she deals with in a good third of her job - people getting competitive and freaked out and working on impossible deadlines. The Great British Baking Show is different. It lacks the intense tension and combativeness of most of the others she's seen, and there's an undercurrent of kindness in all of it. The contestants run to help each other finish on time, and sit holding hands while waiting for the judges.

The sound of an episode focused on pastry dough plays from the tv, and Elizabeth spares a glance towards Neal. He's watching it silently, mouth pressed into a grim line, the light of the shapes on the screen reflected in inscrutable blue eyes. If anything, right now, she thinks he could maybe use a little bit of people being pointlessly, needlessly kind to each other. And it's good background noise to browsing centerpieces looking for a very, very specific shade of orange.

Almost twenty minutes into the episode, Elizabeth notices it. They're sitting fairly close on the couch, but far enough that it took that long for her to feel it - Neal is shaking. His eyes are wide and fixed on the tv but he's not really seeing it. Elizabeth thinks she has a pretty good idea of what it is he's seeing, and it prompts her to close the lid of her laptop.

"Neal," she says, no louder than the reduced volume of the show. He doesn't answer, just shakes his head once, barely.

There's nothing much else for it. He doesn't seem to be able to talk, and she's not going to make him, but she also can't stand to just sit there and do nothing while he relives the death of a person he loved. So Elizabeth sets her computer down on the floor and leans over, reaching an arm around Neal and pulling him back against her. He goes willingly, hand coming up to grab onto her arm where it wraps over his chest. His grip starts out light but tightens as the shaking increases.

"I-" Neal tries, but the sentence makes it no farther than that. It dies in his throat, turning into some half-realized noise of grief, and Elizabeth holds onto him harder. His chest heaves with cracked-mirror breaths, audible and damp. He's either sobbing already or about to start, and there's nothing else to do but sit there and hold him.

As she does so, this devastated person shaking right to pieces in her arms, lost in a kind of mourning that escapes expression by words, Elizabeth's heart hurts so bad she can hardly stand it. It feels like something's physically stuck its claws into her chest, tearing at her each time Neal's breath hitches and chokes. She makes a wordless hushing sound in the back of her throat, her chin bumping the back of his shoulder.

Elizabeth wonders, shaken herself by the force of Neal's grief, when this happened. When this pet project of Peter's stopped being an injoke, a white whale to tease her Captain Ahab about, and what's more, when it stopped being just Peter's. When Neal stopped being just Peter's, when Elizabeth started looking at him and thinking 'ours' rather than 'his'.

Whenever it happened, whatever prompted it, Elizabeth finds that right now, she doesn't care. It did, and here he is. Here they are, and she wouldn't send Neal away now for the world.

After a long time, long enough that the end-credits have rolled and the next episode of the baking show has begun with one fewer contestant, Neal has either calmed down or worn himself out completely, and the shaking has stopped. He lays back against her, still and silent in Elizabeth's arms, and she doesn't let him go. They sit there on the couch together, watching the show in calm quiet, and she wonders when the last time someone held him like this was - no expectations, no untoward intentions, no agenda. The thought makes her tighten her grip, just a fraction, glancing down at his face.

It's still there. The small grey smudge on his forehead, the one she'd seen earlier. On impulse, Elizabeth brings up her other hand and wipes at it using her sleeve, pulled down over the heel of her hand. Once, twice, three times, and it's gone. The soot from the explosion is wiped away, Neal's skin pristine and unharmed under it. And later, when Peter comes home, he and Elizabeth are going to work together, and if they can't get the ash and char off of his heart, then they'll at least give him a safe place to bleed until he can stand on his own again.


End file.
